Discussing my views on abortion

 I guess now is the best time as any to get into my actual views on abortion.

I'm staunchly pro choice. 100%. Like, pretty much among the most extreme positions that you can take. 

Legally

As far as legal abortion I'm pro until birth. And here's why. While I may have moral misgivings post 24-28 weeks or so, the vast majority of abortions happen prior to 20 weeks, and most that happen after are for reasons associated with the health of the mother or, the fetus itself. After watching conservatives pass laws in the Tea party years that seemed to restrict abortions happening for legitimate reasons like stillborn fetuses, stuff like that, I decided that these guys have no idea what they're doing, and if they can't govern on this issue properly, they shouldn't govern at all. I just don't believe in restricting a woman's right to choose. AT ALL. Hope that late term, they use their powers properly, but to my knowledge, most do.

Morally

Now, as far as my MORAL position. Well, I have to go with the secular worldview here. I don't believe a fetus is inherently life worth protecting. It's life, but it's life in the sense that bacteria or a tumor are technically life. Without a conscious agent to feel pain and suffering, I just don't believe that abortion is wrong. For me, when a baby is conceived, it's a clump of cells. When it plops out on the operating table, there's a "baby". We just have to decide at what point one becomes the other. 

I'm not convinced by stuff like omg, there's a heartbeat or stuff like that. For me, we need to figure out what really separates a baby from a clump of cells. For me, there are three criteria we can use.

1) Viability. Viability is a fetus is able to exist outside of the womb. This essentially being a big line between "fetus" and "baby", as a fetus outside of the body is just a baby. If it can live on its own, then it can be classified as a baby. This is the stance Roe v. Wade used, setting the limit at 20 weeks. If we look at the science, you START having viability at 22 weeks where only 5-6% of fetuses can live outside of the womb, and by 26 weeks we reach 86-89%. The 50% mark is around 24 weeks, and is what I generally use as a guidestick in that sense. 

2) Consciousness. Philosophically, what separates a moral agent that can have harm done to it from a rock is the ability to be conscious and experience things. This is a tricky subject, but the earliest estimates are actually 24-28 weeks, with the development of the thalamo-cortical complex. Without this, if a fetus is aborted, who is harmed? Sure, the fetus, but has the fetus ever experienced life? No. It doesnt even exist from its own perspective. So how is harm really done to it in a way that we should be held morally or legally accountable for it? Some would argue that the babies don't even truly experience consciousness until some time after birth. It's kind of an emerging thing. Given that some societies have even allowed infanticide in the past, I could see arguments for that being legitimate, although I wouldn't advocate for such a thing in our society. 24-28 weeks it is. 

3) Ability to feel pain. This is tricky, but generally speaking the nervous system isn't all set up and ready to go until around 27-30 weeks. While PARTS of it exist before that, it's not all hooked up until around then. 

So what can we deduce from these? Well, we can deduce that abortion prior to 22 weeks is completely a okay in my views. I have zero moral qualms about abortion pre 22 weeks. However, post 27-28 weeks, eh, it gets tricky, doesn't it? If I had to draw the line somewhere it would be 24 weeks. This would be the mark of 50% viability and the very beginning of consciousness, and prior to feeling pain. Of course, I could be convinced to shift my opinion to around as late to 27-28 weeks or as early as 22-23 depending on the criteria I use. 

What about my spiritual views?

So here's the thing about pro lifers. Many of them are religious. Many believe in souls and stuff. I won't say you HAVE to have such a mindset to be a pro lifer, but the secular pro life perspective is in my opinion, very weak. 

And given how I do have spiritual views, how do I see it from that perspective? Well, I tend to believe in reincarnation. From what I've seen reading books related to my specific spiritual perspective, the soul attaches to the fetus some time around the 5-6th month, although it can happen as early as the 4th or as late as the 8th. And if an abortion happens, well, the soul probably knows that's a possibility. So they just end up going back up to heaven and plan another life out. Maybe come back to the same parents later, maybe more on entirely. So my spiritual perspective is also very consistent with my secular ideology on it. Generally speaking, abortion before 20-22 weeks is a okay, 22-28 weeks gets increasingly morally ambiguous, with late term abortion being generally immoral.

How I feel about the right

It shouldn't come as any surprise, but being the libertarian childfree person that I am, I have nothing but disdain for the right for trying to impose their morality on everyone. This is America, a secular country, not a theocracy. And I believe that banning abortion is an egregious overreach of our civil liberties and freedoms. If you don't like abortion, don't get one. I don't want to make any pro lifer against the concept have one. But don't tell me I can't have one (or my girlfriend or whatever) because of your religious morality. 

Even if you try to wrap it up secularly, again, I'm not convinced by the secular pro life position. It seems to just be "but it's a human life" and seems stubbornly simplistic to me. It just doesn't work with my own moral system well. I like to focus on things like consequences, the harm principle, stuff like that. And in my opinion, abortion prior to 22 weeks harms no one. Harm is more subjective 22-28 weeks along, and post 28 weeks a very clear potential for harm is there. 

Conclusion

Honestly, the supreme court and the right wing need to keep their hands off of my abortion rights. This upcoming SCOTUS decision is regressive and sets reproductive rights back by decades. I see no issues with early stage abortion, and am only morally opposed to late stage abortion. 

Legally, i would go all the way to birth. The fact is, even with Roe in place, the far right of this country has proven it can't properly regulate this issue in a way that's fair to the mother and her health and considerations. So they don't deserve any privileges in regulating it at all.